After my eventual disappointment with the Hotone Xtomps ‘digital noise problems, I sought an alternative to satisfy my need for a powerfull but ultra-compact pedalboard.
Some research threw up the Boss MS3 unit. I know and like Boss fx already and have been hugely impressed by the sounds I can get out of my little Katana Air portable/practice amp, so I took the plunge.
Having now rehersaed, jammed and gigged it, I can say the MS3 is a terrific prodcut. It combines many, many fx with three external analogue loops, a tune, expresion pedal control and even amp switching in a very compact box.
I have mounted it on my Pedaltrain Nano + board with my Hotone mini Volume/Wah pedal and my Vemuram Jan Ray overdrive, one of the best, in loops 1 & 2. Loop 3 is reserved for when I connect an amp using the four-cable method so I can put drives before the preamp and the mod fx in the amp’s loop.
All of this works seamlessly, is easy to programme (especailly with the desktop editor software), has very low noise and sounds great. And it runs for hours and hours – like a whole bank holiday weekend – from the Palmer Batpack 8000 rechrageable under the board so it doesn’t even need mains power.
(My 633 amps have 9v power in their channel switching pedals which can also power pedals so when I walk onstage, switching the amp on also activates the pedalboard. Very cool.)
